The Time Book
by Cookie Master's Apprentice
Summary: King Arthur touched one of Merlin's insecured "stuffs". Now he got them winded back in time. How will they work things out with their past counterparts? And how to return to their own time without Uther noticing? T for safety. Read and review!


It's my first time writing Merlin fanfiction, and I am not confident with the canon, so if you feel any OOCness, please point it out. Thank you for reading. And review, please!

Ah, and I'm introduced to this timetravel thing by another fanfiction author, so I do not own the series or the idea's backbone itself. Just so you know...

Enjoy.

* * *

"MERLIN!"

King Arthur was definitely annoyed as he all but stormed down the hall to his friend's room that December morning. At least, he believed it was morning. The sky had been the same dull blue-gray for the last week from dawn to evening, and the snow hadn't let up either. All Arthur could guess was that it was somewhere near the tenth hour to the second hour of noon.

To make matters worse, Merlin had deliberately ignored Arthur's summon to the court that morning as well. Arthur trusted Merlin and valued his ideas and opinions, since they were hardly ever wrong, but even though the man was near – what, thirty? – now, his tendency to ignore summons and/or running late was still there, all the way back from his days as Arthur's manservant. In those days, Arthur sometimes also had to go to the wizard's quarter himself to call him. Now they were king and advisor, and still this happened.

"That wizard's just damn amazing," the king muttered to himself. He was king, damn it! Does he have to go in person to get Merlin and his magical hide to show up in time?

Twenty more strides finally found the king standing in front of Merlin's quarters, the old physician Gaius' former chambers. Merlin had taken it over when his uncle died and used it as his sleeping place and his experiment room. Arthur warily drew Excalibur first and stood a fair distance away from the knob, then poked at it. When nothing went exploding or jumping out at him, the king then pulled on his anti-magic gloves and gingerly turned the doorknob. Merlin's quarters had always been a nest of peculiar things ever since Arthur lifted the ban of magic on the land, and the king had more than once regretted it.

Aside from that, he'd also heard complains of weird lights flashing from the Castle Wizard's window constantly any time during the day or night except when Merlin was present at a meeting, but none of his knights were brave enough to go find out what it was. It was one thing to face a sorcerer you can kill, but another when facing a wizard who was best friend to the king and the most powerful wizard in the entire kingdom. Merlin himself might mean no harm, but that did not mean his experiments weren't. So Arthur just got Merlin to install some thicker curtains and that solved it.

Arthur pushed the wooden door open, then paused before poking his head in cautiously. To his surprise and relief, the place looked pretty clean. No weird animal noise, no hooting owl, no flashing lights or bubbling potions. The place was lit by several candles and was comfortably warm (probably by magic), since the light from outside was not nearly enough.

Merlin himself was seated at a table in the far end of the room, his head bent over something. He was too erect to be asleep, Arthur reasoned as he stepped inside the room and walked over to his friend. It looks like he was reading, the king thought, and he found out that Merlin was indeed reading when he reached him and looked over the wizard's shoulder.

It would have been normal about Merlin's reading except for the fact that he was bent over a book the size of half a toothpick and a millimeter thick. Or less.

"Merlin," Arthur raised an eyebrow. "What the hell is that?"

No response. "Merlin," Arthur tried again.

Still no response.

This time, Arthur placed a gloved hand on his friend's shoulder, and the black-haired man turned to look at him with surprised bright golden eyes before they faded back to blue. So he'd used magic to help him read the tiny book, Arthur thought as he adorned his Royally Pissed-Off face.

"You are about to be late for the court summons," Arthur scowled. "How many times, Merlin, did you pointedly ignore my summons, huh? I know you are the Castle Wizard, but can't you just put aside your magical stuff for awhile and attend the kingdom with me?"

"But Arthur, this is interesting. It's some kind of time travel from fairy magic," Merlin protested, not sounding too alert. Half of his mind was still on the tiny and completely inhuman book before him, no doubt, but Arthur wouldn't allow him to say anymore. Grabbing his friend's "interesting" discovery, Arthur was about to put it into his tunic's pocket and intended to return it to Merlin afterward, but the king seemed to have forgotten that Merlin was a beacon for troubles and surprises, and his stuff were all several notches above "weird".

Just as his hand neared the pocket, the tiny volume suddenly flashed a brilliant gold, and when it died down, both Arthur and Merlin had vanished.

0o0o0o0o0

_Years earlier…_

"MERLIN!" Arthur, Prince of Camelot, shouted as he neared his lazy manservant's quarters that was shared with Gaius, the court physician. The boy has now officially become the Worst Servant in Camelot's History, or anywhere in Albion for that matter. Still, as bad-tempered as Arthur was, he wasn't able to not feel an underlying current of worry. It wasn't an everyday even that Merlin was an hour late to work.

Arthur didn't bother knocking as he knew Gaius was out doing some inspection downtown with Uther, his father, so he simply used his foot to knock the door down. It banged against the wall loudly, and in succession, a loud CRASH followed, accompanied by a yelp.

The prince rolled his eyes in annoyance. He probably startled Merlin into tripping over something. Arthur headed for the narrow stairs that led up to Merlin's room, hoping that the manservant hadn't broken anything too serious.

"Merlin, you _idiot_, how late are you going to be…" Arthur was saying as he pushed the door to his servant's bedroom open, only to be faced with a groaning tangled heap of red, blue, black and blonde lying near the door. On instinct, the prince stepped back one step and drew his sword, cobalt eyes wide. _Sorcery,_ a voice that was so like his father's warned him faintly.

"Merlin, you _idiot_, what have you landed us in this time?" a man's voice groaned from the heap as one of the figures, the one dressed mostly in red with blonde hair staggered upright, rolling his shoulders.

"Hey, it was _your_ brilliant idea to touch the blasted volume before I told you to," another voice protested, this one coming from another figure clad in blue robes as he, too stood up. The blonde man offered a hand to help him, and when they have both gotten up, it was revealed that Merlin, Arthur's manservant, had been sit on. The boy also gained his footings, groaning as his back ached.

It would have been comical had Arthur not been terrified and confused out of his mind, but he was, and with great speed, he grabbed Merlin's wrist and pulled him toward the door, shoving him out. By some miracle, the servant caught himself before stumbling down the stairs.

"Who are you?" Arthur demanded. The two men turned to look at him. Both had a beard, and both of their eyes were blue. The only difference was their clothes, and Arthur dimly recognized the Pendragon pin on the familiar red tunic the blonde man was wearing, but what shocked him the most was the sword that hung at his waist.

He would've recognized the golden, ruby-embedded hilt anywhere. Excalibur.

0o0o0o0o0

King Arthur's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets as he looked at the young man before him – it was him, years back, holding a sword at himself. Okay, that doesn't make sense.

Then he turned to Merlin, who was just as shocked. "What the _hell_ have you gotten us into, you?" he demanded, promising to himself that he would see Merlin into the stocks when things go back to normal, and he didn't care how.

* * *

Well, that's all for now. Tell me how I did. Was there a need for me to fix characterization somewhere? If so, be specific, please.

~the Apprentice


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